Developments In International Meat Markets

US chicken feet in Hong Kong, Danish smoked ham on US supermarket shelves, rising sales of Brazilian beef tenderloin in Europe, escalating cross-border investment in poultry operations in Latin America. These are all reflective of the real face of globalisation in international meat markets which are increasingly characterized by closer integration of economies through trade, finance, knowledge, technology, ideas and people. As growing demand for animal protein products has been matched by continuing specialization and advances in meat production management and processing technologies, the global meat market has witnessed a transformation over the past 15 years, with gains in both consumption and trade growth exceeding that of most all other agricultural commodities. Nowhere has this been more evident than in developing countries where per capita meat consumption (carcass wt) has virtually doubled from 1980, rising from 14 kg/caput to an estimated 30 kg/caput by 2005. Nearly three-quarters of the growth in global meat production and consumption over the past decade has been housed in developing countries. Since 1980 the contribution of developing countries to global meat production has grown from 33 percent, surpassing that of developed countries in 1994 to rise to an estimated 58 percent of global production by 2005. The strongest production and consumption growth has been in Asia, in particular East and South East Asia, where strong income growth and traditional preferences have stimulated meat consumption gains of 6 percent over the past two decades.